Catherine turns infidelity, fear of love into a story-driven puzzle game

Catherine is a game that follows a man as he tries to figure out where to take …

When it comes to moral choices in video games, we usually have almost total control over how our character acts. Games like Mass Effect have trained us to choose between good and evil, and for all the complexity of these games, the choices are usually clear cut and obvious. Do you want to kill someone or let them live? Cure a sickness or let someone die for profit? There's rarely any ambiguity. Then there's Catherine.

In Catherine you cheat on your girlfriend. This happens almost as soon as the game begins, and you have no choice in the matter. From your point of view you begin drinking at a bar, and then wake up with a cheery blonde in your bed. The game will begin to fill in the blanks and let you know how this happened, but it's going to happen no matter what. The things you do have power over tend to impact the game in ways that aren't as obvious as you might think, and this leads to some simmering tension as you play.

Oh yeah, and this is a puzzle game.

Keep running up that hill

Catherine

While you deal with your friends, your girlfriend, and then your other pseudo-girlfriend as the game progresses, the real meat of the gameplay happens in a sort of nightmare, where you're forced to run up a series of blocks, being chased by either time or nightmarish creatures that seem to represent your fears and insecurities. You need to move blocks, manipulate the levels, and use items to reach the top, and it's not an easy thing to do. In fact, if you're mostly interested in the story, I would suggest playing it on the "easy" setting. You may miss out on some content this way, but it will save you from throwing your controller through the television.

Catherine gameplay

You don't remember these nightmares during the day, when you have to deal with the two women in your life. The protagonist of the game is named Vincent, and he seems to be aimless. He drinks every night, he smokes like a chimney, and he can't seem to commit to anything for long. There are people to talk to, clues to pick up, and choices to make, and all this changes how the game progresses.

For instance, during the bar sequences, you can talk to people, answer their questions, and deal with their problems, but time continues to move. You may lose your chance to speak with some people, and you have to make choices about the people you want to talk to and what you say to them. There is a meter that shows your status, and it's sometimes unclear which answer will cause the needle to move in what direction. Even in the slower-paced social segments between the puzzles, this is often an uncomfortable game.

There is even a system for sending and receiving text messages where you build your message line by line, choosing from a selection of things to say. It's compelling to have to reassure your girlfriend that you won't drink too much when you're at the bar—or you can tell her to butt out. The game will also ask you questions during the nightmare sequences, and these aren't nearly as clear cut. Do you consider yourself a pervert? How do you feel about actors who have to simulate sex in the movies? You have to choose, and then you get to see how many people online answered either way.

What's frustrating is that the two parts of the game rarely seem to work together. The social aspects are interesting when they move the story along, but the puzzle sections that make up the majority of what you'll be doing don't. They begin to feel like an artificial impediment to keeping you from going through the game too quickly, even though the challenge is satisfying. I have a feeling many puzzle fans are going to be turned off by the story of a young man trying to decide how his life will go, and many fans of story-based games are going to be annoyed by the puzzles. The two sections mix well thematically, but as gameplay they can feel jarring.

That being said, the story will keep you playing, and the voice acting and cutscenes are above average, with some wonderful moments sprinkled here and there. This game has incredible charm and tackles some mature themes, but its bifurcated approach is a risky move. This is a case where you should definitely try before you buy.